The final year of Pluto transiting the sign of Capricorn, despite a brief ingress into Aquarius in 2023, will be significant on many levels. Since 2008, Pluto has been moving through the Saturn-ruled sign of the goat, reminding us of the fluid yet precarious concept of time.

In Greek, Saturn was called Kronos, which is the root of chronology. Saturn’s preoccupation with time has led to more band reunions and movie remakes than I care to ever experience again. It has been comically predictable. Thankfully, Capricorn has some taste. Only what is “classic” or was previously successful managed to make the cut.

With Neptune transiting through Pisces since 2011, there is some transcendence amidst the nostalgia. I cannot speak for everyone, but I have felt often enough during the past 14 years a curious amnesia. Did that happen already? Did I see that movie again for the 10th time? Neptune in Pisces helps with dissociation.

With this final year of Pluto in Capricorn being the Pluto Return for the United States, it is likely that this will be the end of anything very familiar to us. I welcome this, personally, but there are those so wrapped up in nostalgia that this will come as a striking blow.

Whatever rises out of the ashes of this collapse will need to be heavily curated. A nation built on slavery and oppression is not a nation I will miss. However, it is the strongest of the opportunists who will rush to rebuild first, and I honestly can’t say if things will end up better or worse. Much will depend on how people choose to live at the community level.

Tyrants generally have more power and influence than the common person. This is something that doesn’t really change throughout history. The one thing that can never be oppressed or broken, however, is spirit. That may sound cloyingly new age-y to some, but it’s the truth. Spirit is what allows human beings to access different realities; it is what fosters creativity.

Times of turmoil and oppression have always created the best art, so we have that to look forward to. I’ve been waiting for Pluto in Aquarius for years for this reason. And no, this is not yet the Aquarian Age.

That won’t happen until 2378. What we are experiencing now (with the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Aquarius in 2020) is a 20-year Aquarian cycle in the next 200 years of Air. It is a prelude to what none of us currently alive on Earth will experience in this lifetime. Yet, if we acknowledge that time is conceptual, then we can understand thematic shifts as nonlinear. All experiences are part of a continuum. What happens during our lifetimes will still be relevant in the future.

The Klaus Schwab’s of the world recently declaring: “you will own nothing and be happy” of course sounds a lot like “let them eat cake”. Yet, if the wealthy elite plans to tax the very citizens that made them trillionaires while simultaneously taking ownership away from them, who is to say that said citizens need to continue to pay taxes?

Despite the IRS hiring something like 80,000 new agents in the past year (who allegedly plan to make house calls on low-income Americans), there is legal precedent for defending one’s individual right to not pay taxes if the architects of your federal financial system deliberately fail to make that system ethical. If you’re in danger of foreclosure, for example, read up as much as you can not just on your constitutional rights but about the U.S. banking system. You’ll be surprised how much power you have just by educating yourself.

If every citizen challenged their government by being educated, rather than rioting and creating anarchy when the system collapses (which just gives governments more power), then elaborate curtain tricks don’t work. The translation of the Greek Apokalupsis (Apocalypse) is “to uncover” or “lifting of the veil”. It doesn’t have to be about running through the streets in aimless destruction. It can also be about an unwillingness to play the game because you know the rules.